Bill FisherNataly Kogan '98 is the co-founder and "chief happiness officer" of Happier.com, a Boston-based happiness company. Kogan immigrated to the United States with her parents from the former Soviet Union when she was thirteen and spent two decades "chasing the big happy," as she calls it. But when even her achievements failed to make her truly happy, Nataly turned to science and became inspired to stop saying "I'll be happy when..." and start thinking "I'm happier now because..." Kogan was a student in the College of Social Studies and met her husband, Avi Grossman Spivack '99, while they were working…
David LowThe ever-busy Jeffrey Richards ’69 is the co-producer of a new musical The Bridges of Madison County, based on the hugely popular novel by Robert James Waller, which opened at the Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre on Broadway on February 20. The musical stars acclaimed actors Kelli O’Hara (Nice Work If You Can Get It, South Pacific) and Steven Pasquale (Rescue Me) with a score by Tony Award winner Jason Robert Brown (The Last Five Years, Parade), a book by Pulitzer Prize winner Marsha Norman (The Secret Garden, ‘Night, Mother), and direction by Tony Award winner Bartlett Sher (South Pacific, The Light…
Brian KattenTalia Bernstein '11 made a walk-on in a scene set at Wesleyan during the episode of How I Met Your Mother titled "Rally" which aired Monday, Feb. 24. Bernstein is the all-time leading hitter in Wesleyan softball history with 192 career hits and the career RBI leader with 114. She works on the production staff of the show and was picked to walk across the scene in her Wesleyan softball sweatshirt while characters Marshall and Lily Eriksen were dropping their son off at Wesleyan in the year 2030. How I Met Your Mother is in its ninth and final season…
Mike SembosDan Poliner ’97 released his debut feature-length film “Jack, Jules, Esther & Me” in October 2013 at the Austin Film Festival. It’s about four friends living in NYC — two rich and two poor — during their final week of summer before leaving for college. It’s a wacky comedy, a romantic comedy and an examination of the differing paths presented to those who have money, and those who don’t. Much of the music in the film was provided by the band Peace Museum, which Casey Feldman ’12 formed on campus. “I believe all the music was recorded while they were…
In Brick By Brick: How LEGO Rewrote the Rules of Innovation and Conquered the Toy Industry, David C. Robertson ‘81 (with Bill Breen) traces how the company grew from a small woodworking shop in a tiny Danish town to become one of the most beloved global brands of all time. In 2003, LEGO was heading toward bankruptcy but a new management was able to steer things in the right direction, transforming the business into one of the world’s most profitable, fastest-growing companies. From 2002 through 2010, Roberston was a professor of innovation and technology management at the Institute of Management…
Avital Norman Nathman MALS ’07 has edited a new collection of 35 essays, The Good Mother Myth: Redefining Motherhood to Fit Reality (Seal Press) unravels the social media-fed notion of what it means to be a “good mother” in an era of mommy blogs, Pinterest, and Facebook. This volume takes a realistic look at motherhood and provides a platform for a diversity of voices, sharing revealing, candid, and sometimes raw stories to expand the narrative of motherhood we don’t tend to see in the headlines or on the news. The essay writers come from all walks of life, from professors…
In From Little London to Little Bengal: Religion, Print and Modernity in Early British India 1795-1835, (The Johns Hopkins University Press), Daniel E. White ’91, associate professor of British Romanticism at University of Toronto, examines the traffic in culture between Britain and India during the Romantic period. In the early part of the 19th century, part of Calcutta could be called "Little London," while in London itself an Indianized community of returned expatriates was emerging as "Little Bengal." Circling between the two, this study considers British and Indian literary, religious, and historical sources alongside newspapers, panoramas, religious festivals, idols, and…
Karen Donfried ’94 will become the president of the German Marshall Fund in April, a role for which she was unanimously elected. She’s currently a special assistant to President Obama and senior director for European affairs on the National Security Council at the White House. She advises the president on European matters and leads the development and implementation process of his European policies. "I am very pleased that Karen is returning to GMF to take on its leadership," said current GMF president Craig Kennedy, in a press release. Kennedy is retiring after 19 years at the helm. "I am very…
Natalie Robichaud ’14Wesleyan students and alumni are invited to a networking and relationship building opportunity, Connect@Wes, held Feb. 28 and March 1 on campus. Events held throughout the weekend are designed to help with career advancement. Events begin with "Creating Connections," a hands-on opportunity for students to practice presenting themselves as professionals through structured speed-networking. Students will apply to participate and will be matched with expert advisors (recruiters and hiring managers as well as alumni and parent volunteers) for brief, one-on-one sessions. Expert advisors will use their experience and expertise to critique what they have heard and give valuable insight on how…
Olivia DrakeRandall MacLowry '86, visiting instructor in film studies, co-produced, directed and wrote an episode for the PBS history series American Experience. Titled "The Rise and Fall of Penn Station," the hour-long episode premieres at 9 p.m. on Tuesday, Feb. 18. Pennsylvania Station, a monumental train terminal in the heart of Manhattan, finally opened to the public on Nov. 27, 1910. Covering nearly eight acres, the building was the fourth largest in the world. By 1945, more than 100 million passengers traveled through Penn Station each year. But by the 1960s, what was supposed to last forever was slated for destruction. In…
Michael Collins ’81 has written a new book of poems, The Traveling Queen (Sheep Meadow Press). He sent us the following comments on his collection: “This book is dedicated to Annie Dillard, who began teaching at Wesleyan University while I was there and who encouraged me to pursue a career as a writer so many times that she finally overcame my misgivings. “In general, the writing of the book was informed by my sense that poems are promises. ‘So long as men can breathe or eyes can see/ so long lives this [poem],’ Shakespeare promises in one sonnet, ‘and this…
Johanna Tayloe Crane ’93 is the author of a new study, Scrambling for Africa: AIDS, Expertise, and the Rise of American Global Health Science (Cornell University Press) which documents how and why Africa became a major hub of American HIV and AIDS research in recent years after having formerly been excluded from its benefits due to poverty and instability. “American AIDS researchers became interested in working in Africa for two major reasons—one humanitarian, and one having more to do with scientific/professional motivations,” Crane said. “Once effective HIV treatment was discovered in the mid-1990s and the American epidemic began to come…